December 1994, and a showing of Nuns on the Run, one of those movies that's perfectly acceptable on TV, but which you can barely believe actually played in theatres. Robbie Coltrane seemed to make a lot of those.

After the letterbox programme caption and the optical illusion break-bumper, the first advert is for the sort of magic DIY machine that only gets advertised at this time of year. It's a stripper, ho ho, it's from Bosch, and for no obvious reason it's represented by the manicured hand of the Incredible Hulk. BOSCH GOOD! EXCELLENCE COME AS STANDARD!

Then there's one of those inescapable honey-coloured fragrance adverts, starring what appears to be Justin Kirk impersonating Ewan MacGregor playing Fabio. Completely unedifying.

Then there's a bloody irritating artefact that ran every Christmas for eight thousand years on every commercial break until you wanted Mr. Johnson to skin the little bastard alive. Sadly, a bribe in the form of a small box of chocolates seems to be enough to offset his homicidal tendencies, against all reason.

Next, an absolutely terrifying stop-motion kangaroo eats some Australians and washes it down with Foster's Ice, "for a clean crisp taste", whatever that means.

Then: Lurpak! Douglas the Butterman and his constant attempts to play his trombone - usually Flight of the Bumblebee or something similarly arpeggiated - over the objections of Giant Penelope Keith, who was trying to explain why Lurpak was so bloody great. At Christmas, Keith relents and lets him tootle a few bars of Deck the Halls to little net effect. Douglas and Giant Penelope advertised this butter for nearly 20 years from 1985 to the early oughties. If it's not obvious from the face, Douglas was the work of Aardman. He was actually there before Keith, emerging from crumpets to croon about butter and ride around on butter motorcycles in the thrillingly stupid "Leader of Lurpak". As soon as Giant Penelope showed up in the adverts, he fell mostly silent. Apart from the music, of course, when he gets the chance.

Next is another poxy fragrance advert, featuring a preternaturally smiley French woman in a tight red dress and a small child.

Then, the newly launched, weeks old National Lottery! This is a cut-down version of the launch advert, which was absolutely everywhere at the time. They even stitched it to the insides of your eyelids. "IT COULD" on the left, "BE YOU" on the right. For some reason, Bernard Cribbins does the voiceover. If you've never seen the miniseries of Stephen King's The Stand, well, this is how it ends.

Then, Arthur the Cat (and his voiceover man) visit from the Kattomeat adverts - alright, Arthur's adverts - to promote Panasonic and his super fabulous new thing where it adjusts for the light, which they've called "CATS", you see, so that's why Arthur is here and anyway whatever. Arthur's Cat Food gets a plug in too, which was presumably part of the deal, Blackheart.

Next is Boots, which if you're American is a drugstore and if you're British is simply Boots. I quite like this advert, which takes advantage of the brand's establishment by simply allowing a horizontal oval to speak for itself until the last shot. The music's pleasant too. It's certainly far less apocalyptic than the still-ongoing we-burnt-our-bra-for-this "Here Come The Girls" campaign, with its nightmarish stomping lady armies celebrating womanhood as synonymous with shallow, meaningless, PG-hedonistic shit.

Next, more DIY! Black and Decker present a very impressive table indeed. I come from a line of builders and decorators, and yet I have no idea what any of this is. Apparently it's particularly special because it folds in a specific direction, although I've already forgotten which and I only watched it five minutes ago. Anyway, if you are or know a Bloke, this is what to get for Christmas.

That's all the advert, now have some trailers. First, apparently Tim Allen is a standup. And has a whole "wiring" motif to exploit the success of Home Improvement, which was showing on Channel 4 at the time - hence Channel 4 had to show the stand-up show. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. To be fair, I don't actually hate Tim Allen - he's Buzz Lightyear, for God's sake! That said, there are few jokes in evidence here.

It doesn't help that he's immediately followed by Bill Murray, in Quick Change (I uploaded the commercials from a different showing of this film a while back) and Caddyshack, in which he's actually just a supporting character, not that you'd know it from the trailer. He doesn't spend that much time as a clown in Quick Change either.

Finally, the Channel 4 ident introduces the film. More adverts from it tomorrow.

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